Ariana Grande
EDC102H
Dr. Fogleman
High School Influences
High school, for me, was hard. My first two years I got in trouble- a lot. To the point where my parents were very unhappy with me, and my grades were falling dramatically. I had always been a decent student, and my grades usually stayed above a B+, but during my first two years of high school, they hovered around a C-. The reason for my poor grades was due to many distractions. I made friends with rowdy kids, I snuck around on the weekends, and I pushed my schoolwork to the very back of the back burner. I believe that you are a product of who your friends are, and my friends were not the greatest people to be hanging around with.
My best friend at the time came from a home where her two parents were both alcoholics. They were never truly around for her, except when they were content with the amount of alcohol in their cups. They rarely asked about her schoolwork, and when they did it was a short conversation. My parents weren't aware of her parents state, so I spent a lot of time over their household, and because her parents never enforced school, we didn't care much about it either. I started to become really close with this family, and it wasn't long until the parent's drinks at the dinner table, became ours too.
Sometimes we all must learn the hard way and unfortunately that was the path that I ventured down. It wasn't until I was suspended from school for underage drinking that I finally stopped and reevaluated who my friends had to be. Being fifteen years old and being in trouble for alcohol is really embarrassing, and a lot of teachers in my school decided to look the other way. I was too much of an issue for them, and they didn't care to know my story. This all changed though when I met Mrs. White, my religion teacher. I was placed in Mrs. White's class at the beginning of my junior year. If she knew my story before, she acted like she never had because she was the sweetest person I had ever met. She taught my class more than just religion and the bible. She taught us how to be above and beyond people. The kind of people that ask how someone's day is, who would go out of their way to lend a hand, those one and a million kind of people. Mrs. White taught everyone in my class something valuable, but me, she taught me how to fix myself.
High school is way more than just books, tests, and teachers fighting over fancy overhead projectors. High school is about finding yourself, and about creating a good path for yourself. My biggest influence in high school was Mrs. White. She taught me how to keep things from the past, in the past, and to not let those past things define me. She was my teacher, my mentor, my counselor, and my friend. She was the best teacher I ever had. She was the one that pushed me to still go to tennis practice when all I wanted to do was go home and sulk. She was the one that encouraged me to talk to my parents about my friend's alcoholic parents. She was the one that sat with me while I cried about my terrible grades. High school is a time where kids can make really big mistakes. Luckily for me, I met Mrs. White just in time to fix them all. Some kids hop on the wrong path, and honestly, all they need is for someone to guide them to the right one. All they need to do is find that teacher that will take the time of day to listen. The kind of teacher that brings a student from a C- average to an A- average. The kind of teacher that clipped out the newspaper article that stated I made honors for the first time in all of high school and kept it on her desk. That kind of teacher.
EDC102H
Dr. Fogleman
High School Influences
High school, for me, was hard. My first two years I got in trouble- a lot. To the point where my parents were very unhappy with me, and my grades were falling dramatically. I had always been a decent student, and my grades usually stayed above a B+, but during my first two years of high school, they hovered around a C-. The reason for my poor grades was due to many distractions. I made friends with rowdy kids, I snuck around on the weekends, and I pushed my schoolwork to the very back of the back burner. I believe that you are a product of who your friends are, and my friends were not the greatest people to be hanging around with.
My best friend at the time came from a home where her two parents were both alcoholics. They were never truly around for her, except when they were content with the amount of alcohol in their cups. They rarely asked about her schoolwork, and when they did it was a short conversation. My parents weren't aware of her parents state, so I spent a lot of time over their household, and because her parents never enforced school, we didn't care much about it either. I started to become really close with this family, and it wasn't long until the parent's drinks at the dinner table, became ours too.
Sometimes we all must learn the hard way and unfortunately that was the path that I ventured down. It wasn't until I was suspended from school for underage drinking that I finally stopped and reevaluated who my friends had to be. Being fifteen years old and being in trouble for alcohol is really embarrassing, and a lot of teachers in my school decided to look the other way. I was too much of an issue for them, and they didn't care to know my story. This all changed though when I met Mrs. White, my religion teacher. I was placed in Mrs. White's class at the beginning of my junior year. If she knew my story before, she acted like she never had because she was the sweetest person I had ever met. She taught my class more than just religion and the bible. She taught us how to be above and beyond people. The kind of people that ask how someone's day is, who would go out of their way to lend a hand, those one and a million kind of people. Mrs. White taught everyone in my class something valuable, but me, she taught me how to fix myself.
High school is way more than just books, tests, and teachers fighting over fancy overhead projectors. High school is about finding yourself, and about creating a good path for yourself. My biggest influence in high school was Mrs. White. She taught me how to keep things from the past, in the past, and to not let those past things define me. She was my teacher, my mentor, my counselor, and my friend. She was the best teacher I ever had. She was the one that pushed me to still go to tennis practice when all I wanted to do was go home and sulk. She was the one that encouraged me to talk to my parents about my friend's alcoholic parents. She was the one that sat with me while I cried about my terrible grades. High school is a time where kids can make really big mistakes. Luckily for me, I met Mrs. White just in time to fix them all. Some kids hop on the wrong path, and honestly, all they need is for someone to guide them to the right one. All they need to do is find that teacher that will take the time of day to listen. The kind of teacher that brings a student from a C- average to an A- average. The kind of teacher that clipped out the newspaper article that stated I made honors for the first time in all of high school and kept it on her desk. That kind of teacher.